A couple who arrived back in the UK on the first chartered flight from the Middle East said they sheltered in a car park beneath their hotel in Dubai.
Thousands of British nationals are stranded in the Middle East after US-Israeli strikes on Iran prompted retaliatory strikes across the region.
The first government chartered flight took off from Muscat, the capital of Oman, at 1.36pm on Thursday, having initially been scheduled for 7pm on Wednesday.
The Titan Airways plane touched down at London Stansted just before 1am on Friday, carrying mostly families with young children.
Amelia Reid and Samuel Sharp travelled to Dubai for a long weekend, arriving last Friday, and by Saturday evening they were sheltering under their hotel.
They had travelled for more than 40 hours by the time they touched down at Stansted, where they were greeted by Ms Reid’s parents and their dog Penny.
Mr Sharp said: “Saturday we ended up sleeping in a car park in the basement of the hotel with about 100 other people, after the alarms went off on our phones.
“Didn’t get told if it was safe to go up or not, just went up for breakfast and I think we heard a massive bang after that, so it’s just on edge, on edge for four days.
Ms Reid, who had been travelling in a wheelchair, said: “We left Dubai yesterday lunchtime, went straight to the Oman border, and went on a coach all the way to Muscat airport in the hope we’d get on the government plane.”
She explained after arriving at Muscat airport and boarding the chartered flight on Wednesday evening, they were told they would not be taking off because the pilot was out of hours.
Another man, who wished to remain nameless, described the “terrible” wait for the plane to take off on Wednesday evening, before the delay to Thursday afternoon.
He, his wife and young child spent 36 hours in Muscat airport, after fleeing Dubai last weekend.
He said: “To be honest, United Arab Emirates government has been doing very good with the interception (of missiles) and making people safe, but it’s just that I thought it’s not worth any of this, even if something minor happens, especially for the family, it’s not good.”
He drove 300 miles from Dubai to Oman earlier this week.
The man continued: “I think today was better, but the day before was very terrible. We took almost four hours for check-in. And then after that, we were told we can’t fly because pilot is on overtime, so we had to go back to the hotel.”
More than 140,000 Britons have registered their presence in the Middle East with the Foreign Office and 4,000 have returned home.
Share